The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  ‘Silly,’ she admonished herself, kicking the Box as she passed it. ‘Silly!’ Still, she left it where it was, decided to ignore it, turned on the television set to drown out any thought of it. Despite the bus crash, the morning was full of favorable portents. No time to waste thinking of Professor Harvey S. Zahmani.

  ‘…Zahmani,’ the television echoed in its cheerful-pedantic news voice. ‘M. A. Zahmani, Prime Minister of Alphenlicht, guest lecturer at several American universities this spring, prior to his scheduled appearance before the United Nations this week…’

  This brought her to crouch before the tube, seeing a face altogether familiar. It was Harvey. No, it wasn’t Harvey. It looked like Harvey, but not around the mouth or eyes. The expression was totally different. Except for that, they could be Siamese twins. Except that Harvey was up in Boston and this man was here at the university to lecture … on what? On Alphenlicht, of course. She had read something about the current controversy over Alphenlicht and – what was that other tiny country? Lubovosk. There was a Newsweek thingy on it, and she burrowed under the table for the latest issue as the television began a breathless account of basketball scores and piggy-backed commercials in endless, morning babble.

  ‘…Among the world’s oldest principalities, the two tiny nations of Alphenlicht and Lubovosk were joined until the nineteenth century under a single, priestly house which traced its origins back to the semi-mythical Magi. A minor territorial skirmish in the mid-nineteenth century left the northern third of the minuscule country under Russian control. Renamed ‘Lubovosk,’ the separated third now asserts legal rights to the priestly throne of Alphenlicht, a claim stoutly opposed by Prime Minister of Alphenlicht, Makr Avehl Zahmani…’

  There was a map showing two sausage-link-shaped territories carved out of the high mountains between Turkey and Iraq and an inset picture of a dark, hawk-eyed woman identified as the hereditary ruler of Lubovosk. Marianne examined the woman with a good deal of interest. The face was very familiar. It was not precisely her own, but there was something about the expression which Marianne had seen in her mirror. The woman might be a cousin, perhaps. ‘Good lord,’ Marianne admonished the pictured face. ‘If you and Russia want it, why doesn’t Russia just invade it the way they did Afghanistan?’ Receiving no reply, she rose to get about the business of breakfast. ‘Zahmani,’ she mused. She had never met anyone with that name except Harvey and herself. In strange cities, she had always looked in the phone book to see whether there might be another Zahmani. Then, too, Alphenlicht was the storybook land which had always been featured in Cloud-haired mama’s bedtime tales. Alphenlicht. Surprising, really. She had known it was a real place, but she had never thought of it as real until this moment. Alphenlicht. Zahmani. ‘This,’ she sang to herself as she scrambled eggs, ‘would be interesting to know more about.’

  When she left the apartment, her hair was knotted on her neck, she was dressed in a soft sweater and tweedy skirt, and the place was orderly behind her. She checked to see that she had her key, the Box nudging her foot while she ignored it, refused to see it. Instead, she shut her eyes, turned to face the room, then popped her eyes open. She did this every morning to convince herself that she had not dreamed the place, every morning doubting for a moment that it would be there. Was the paint still the dreamed-on color? Were the drapes still soft around the windows, curtains moving just a little in the breeze? No rain today, so she left the window open an inch to let the spring in and find it there when she returned. ‘I love you, room,’ she whispered to it before leaving it. ‘I will bring you a pot of crocuses tonight.’ Purple ones. In a blue glazed pot. She could see them in her head, as though they were already on the window seat, surrounded by the cushions.

  Back in the unremembered time, there had been a window seat with cushions where Marianne had nested like a fledgling bird. Cloud-haired mama had teased Harvey, sometimes, and urged him to sit on the window seat with them and listen to her stories. Marianne had been hiding in the cushions of the window seat the day she had heard Mama speaking to Harvey in the exasperated voice she sometimes used. ‘Harvey, please, my dear, find yourself a nice girl your own age and stop this nonsense. I am deeply in love with your father, and I could not possibly be interested in a boy your age even if I were twenty again.’ Of course, there had only been seven years’ difference in their ages, Marianne reminded herself. Though Papa had been forty-three, Mama had been only twenty-seven and Harvey had been twenty. Harvey had been different then; he had been handsome as a prince, and kind, and they had sometimes gone riding together. She shut down the thought before it started. ‘Begone,’ she muttered to the memory. ‘Be burned, buried, gone.’ It was her own do-it-yourself enchantment, a kind of self-hypnosis, substitute for God knew how many thousand dollars worth of psychotherapy. It worked. The memory ducked its head and was gone, and as she left the room, she was humming.

  At the confluence of three sidewalks, the library notice board was always good for one or two order points. The bulletin board was always rigorously correct; there were only current items upon it; matters of more than passing interest were decorously sleeved in plastic, even behind the sheltering glass, to avoid the appearance of having been handled or read. Marianne sometimes envisioned a crew of compulsive, tenured gnomes arriving each night to update the library bulletin board. Though she had worked at the library for five years now, she had never seen anyone prepare anything for the board or post it there. She preferred her own concept to the possible truth and did not ask about it.

  ‘Order, one; confusion, one. Score, even,’ she said to herself. The bulletin board was in some respects an analogue of her own life as she sought to have it; neatly arranged, efficiently organized, ruthlessly protected. There were no sentimental posters left over from sweeter seasons, no cartoons savoring ephemeral causes, no self-serving announcements by unnecessary committees. There were only statements of facts in the fewest possible, well chosen words. She scrutinized it closely, finding no fault in it except that it was dull – a fact which she ignored. It was, in fact, so dull that she almost missed the announcement.

  ‘Department of Anthropology: Spring Lecture Series, Journeys in Ethnography. M. A. Zahmani, Magian Survivals in Modern Alphenlicht. April 16, 12.30 p.m. – 2.00 p.m. Granville Lecture Hall.’

  She felt an immediate compulsion to call Harvey and tell him that a namesake of theirs was to give a lecture in three hours’ time on a subject dear to Harvey’s heart. Not only a namesake, but a Prime Minister. The impulse gave way at once to sober second thought. Harvey would be in class at the moment. Or, if not in class, he would be in his office persuading some nubile candidate for a postgraduate degree that her thesis would be immeasurably enhanced by experiencing a field trip for the summer in company with ‘Call Me Har’ Zahmani. While he might be interested in learning of the visiting lecturer, he would certainly be annoyed at being interrupted. Whatever Harvey might be doing, he was always annoyed – as well she knew – at being interrupted. On the other hand, if she did not tell him and he read about it, as he would, in some journal or other or even, heaven help her, in the daily paper, then she could expect one of those superior, unpleasant phone calls. ‘One would think, Marianne, that with no more on your mind than your own not very distinguished academic work, you might remember that it is my field…’

  No. Far better to call his apartment and leave a light-hearted sounding message on his machine. Then he would have been told and would not have palpable grounds for offense. Which did not mean he would not contrive some such grounds, but she wouldn’t have made it easy for him. She lifted her head in unconscious dismissal. Thinking her way around her half brother often required that kind of dismissal. Meantime, should she or should she not go to the lecture herself? Alphenlicht wasn’t her subject as it was Harvey’s – he had traveled there the same summer Mama had died. He had talked about it since then, mockingly, and about the Cave of Light. Well. Flip mental coin. Rock back and forth on heels and toes. Bite lip. W
hy not, after all? She’d had a large breakfast; she’d simply skip lunch.

  And with that it was back to the wars, the library stacks, the endless supply of books to be found, shelved, located, relocated, repaired, and otherwise dealt with. The work did not pay well, but it was steady and quiet; it did not require an extensive wardrobe or the expense of socializing. There were no men to be avoided, to be wary of, or suspicious of. No office parties. The head librarian did have the habit of indulging in endless, autobiographical monologues, sometimes of astonishing intimacy, in Marianne’s hearing, but with practice they could be ignored. There were no collections for weddings or babies. In the library, Marianne was anonymous, virtually unseen. It was a cheap, calm place to work, and Marianne valued it for what it was.

  At a quarter past noon she left her work, smoothing her sleeves over wrists still damp from a quick wash up. Granville was a small lecture hall, which meant they did not expect a crowd. She moved through the clots of people on the steps, dodging clouds of cigarette smoke, to find a place near the front of the hushed hall. The speaker came in with several other people, probably people from the Anthropology Department. His face was turned away, the outline of his head giving Marianne a queer, skittish feeling, as the department spokesman mounted the podium to mumble a few words of introduction, sotto voce, like a troubled bee. Then the speaker turned to mount the platform and she thought in revulsive panic, ‘My God, it is Harvey! They got the initials wrong!’ Only to see that no, it was someone else after all. Her heart began to slow. The choked, suffocated feeling began to fade. The first words assured her that it was someone else. Harvey’s voice was brittle, sharp, full of small cutting edges and sly humors. This man’s voice covered the audience like brocade, rich and glittering.

  ‘My name is Makr Avehl Zahmani. In my small country, which you Westerners call Alphenlicht because of an innocent mistake made by an eighteenth-century German geographer, I am what you would call a Prime Minister. In a country so small as Alphenlicht, this is no great office, though it is an honorable one which has been hereditary to my family for almost seventeen centuries…’

  Hereditary Prime Minister, thought Marianne, and so like my half brother they could have been clones. Look at him. The same hair. The same eyes. If Alphenlicht is indeed the old country from which we came, then you are of the line from which we sprang. Harvey wouldn’t believe this. I don’t think I’ll try to tell him. She looked down at the notes her hand had taken automatically, reading ‘Hereditary for seventeen centuries…’ Ah, surely that was an exaggeration, she thought, looking up to see his eyes upon her, as startled as hers had been to see him first. Then his lips bent upward in interested surprise and went on speaking even as his look fastened her to her seat and told her not to move until there was time to settle this thing, this thing he had recognized.

  ‘There is possibly only one force in human society which could have bound one family to so lengthy a course of public service. I speak, of course, of religion, and it is of the religion of Alphenlicht, the religion of our people, that I have been asked to speak to you today…’

  Marianne’s score between order and chaos was almost even for the week, and Marianne considered this among other things as she went on taking notes without thinking about it. If this man who looked so much like Harvey were like Harvey, then any further attention paid to him would push the confusion scores for the week – for the month – beyond any hope of recouping However. She looked down to see her handwriting and to underline the word. However! The amusement she was hearing was not Harvey’s kind of mockery. This man had a gentler mind, perhaps? He would not delight in tying knots in one just for the fun of it? Flip coin, she told herself, but not just yet. He’s got some time to talk before I have to decide whether to run.

  ‘Our people serve the god of time and space. Our name for this deity is Zurvan, One-Who-Includes-Everything. My own family name, Zahman, means “space.” In the early centuries, BC, during the height of the Persian Empire, our people were centered in the lands north of Ecbatana, among the Medes. We were known as the Magi…’

  So this is a Magus? Black hair, a little long, flowing over his impeccable shirt collar. Narrow face, imperious nose, high arching, very mobile brows. Sensual mouth, she thought, followed at once by the enchantment words, buried, burned, gone. She would not think about sensual mouths. She wrote ‘Magi,’ underlined it twice, then looked up to find his eyes eagerly upon her again. His chin was paler than the rest of his face, as though he had recently shaved a beard. She narrowed her eyes to imagine him with a beard, and a picture flashed – glittering robes, tall hat, beard in oiled ringlets. She shook her head to rid it of this We-Three-Kings stuff. ‘Beard,’ she wrote, question mark. Why did he go on looking at her like that?

  Because, said the internal monitor, the one Marianne called old sexless-logical, just as you recognize a family likeness in him, he recognizes one in you. Obviously.

  ‘Obviously,’ she wrote, listening.

  ‘Our religion is monotheistic, though not sexist, for Zurvan is both male and female. In our own language, we have pronouns which convey this omni-sexuality (I say “omni” to allow for the possible discovery of some extra terrestrial race which needs more than two)’ – polite laughter from audience – ‘but in your language you must make allowances when I say “from his womb”…’

  ‘Wombmates,’ she wrote busily, then scratched it out. Allowing for the difference in sex, it was possible he recognized her in the same way she had recognized him. Same eyes, nose, hair, eyebrows. Same mouth.

  ‘We recognized many attributes of this divine unity, but there was a tendency for this recognition to be corrupted into mere idolatry or a pervasive dualism. This was convenient for kings who needed to incorporate all the little godlets of the conquered into the state religion. There began to be priests and prophets, some even calling themselves Magi, who turned away from the pure, historic religion.’

  He’s about forty, she thought. Maybe a few years older than that. The same age as Harvey. Who should have remained an only child. Who would have remained an only child except that Papa Zahmani fell for my Cloud-haired mama and the two of them went off into eternity, unfortunately leaving me behind. From Harvey’s point of view. Not that he had ever actually said anything of the kind.

  ‘In the third century AD there were widespread charges of heresy brought by one Karder, a priest serving the current Sassanid king. Karder espoused a more liberal faith, one which could incorporate any number of political realities. He and the king found the Zurvanian Magi difficult to … ah, manipulate. The charges of heresy were made first, on the grounds that the king’s religion was the correct one, and the persecutions came after. My people fled north, into the mountains…’

  He was turning to the map on the easel, putting on glasses to peer at it a little nearsightedly, taking them off to twiddle them, like Professor Frank in ethno-geography. Like old Williams. Lord, he could be any teacher, any professor. Why did she feel this fascination?

  ‘The area is now called Kurdistan, near what was Armenia. The borders of many modern nations twist themselves together in this region – Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, the USSR – of which I will have more to say later. In the midst of this tangled, inaccessible region, my people established a theocracy a millennium and three quarters ago. There were no roads into the country then. There is one entering our country now, from the vicinity of Van, in Turkey. There is another, not so good, from the area around Lake Urmia in Iran. We have no airport, though we have improved the road during the last decades, to accommodate those who seek the Cave of Light …’

  If he talks about the Cave of Light as endlessly as Harvey talks about the Cave of Light, I will simply get up in a dignified manner and leave, she thought. As though I have to get to class. As though I were late for an appointment with the dean. He went on talking about the Cave of Light, and she didn’t move. Her hand went on taking notes, quietly, automatically, while she sat there and let the words
flow through. Harvey called the Cave of Light a kind of historic Ouija board. Makr Avehl Zahmani obviously thought it was more than that – a good deal more than that. I can’t be taking this seriously, she thought. Magi, for God’s sake. Magians, magicians, magic. Lord.

  ‘Several generations ago the czars of Russia extended their borders in several areas. One such extension cut our small country into two parts. The northern third of it was gobbled up into Russia and renamed Lubovosk. The Magi who live in Lubovosk are still our people, our separated people. They now have their own charges of heresy to contend with. In seventeen hundred years not that much has changed. Now, I have used my allotted time. If any of you have questions, please feel free to come forward and ask them of me.’

  She did not move during the light, appreciative applause. He had been a good speaker. The hall emptied. A half-dozen argumentative students went forward to pick at details of his talk. She sat. Even when the arguers went away and the speaker came toward her, she sat as he scanned her face quarter inch by quarter inch, shivering between smile and frown.

  ‘My dear young woman,’ he said, ‘I believe we must be related.’

  She could not afterward remember quite how it happened that she accompanied him to the only good restaurant nearby and found herself drinking a third or fourth glass of wine as she finished her dessert. She seemed to have been listening to him for hours as he sparkled and glittered, telling her marvelous things about marvelous places and people. Something he said made her comment on her game of muddle versus order and her lifetime cumulative score.